Saturday, November 3, 2007

ClipMarks and a Firefox Update

This morning I received a notice that there were new updates for my excellent browser, Firefox, so I updated. As usual, the ending screen asked if I wanted to see the recommended Firefox add-ons. Certainly!! I always do.As I was browsing through the add-ons, I noted a few that I might want to add, and then I came to Clipmarks. Oooooh!! ClipMarks has become my favorite social bookmarking community, so I thought "I haven't reviewed this add-on yet. I resolved that omission. I rated and reviewed Clipmarks for the Firefox review of Clipmarks that is available in the add-on download section.

Here is my review:

Clipmarks adds value to your browsing, browsing, clipping and sharing experience. Being a bookmark and hotlist aficionado, I was curious about ClipMarks. I already had del.icio.us, but I was drawn to the added feature of clipping quotable material.

I first added Clipmarks in early June, 2007 because it sounded like a great free tool for research. On the fly, I could copy snippets of the article I found important,as well as, properly quote and cite information for later use.

Being a teacher, I immediately could see the potential value for students researching a topic on the internet. When they found an article, they could clip it, store it online, and use it later for their research. I thought it would be especially helpful for teachers who ask students to find Current Event articles in their study area.

What I didn't know was that Clipmarks is a very powerful add-on program. You can clip snippets, pictures and save them to your online file. Also, you can tag your article in del.icio.us or magnolia. Your comments, are yours, they belong to you, so you can use them later in your research. Another striking feature is the ability to send your clipmark to your blog(there are several) or get code to embed in blogs, like MySpace, that are not supported. There are a vast array of other extras available in Clipmarks that you will want to use.

All your Clipmarks can be private, but by making your clips public, you have the added benefit of community. There is a community of "clippers" who can pop your clipmarks. The pop is a way to acknowledge your clip as interesting or important. They add your clip to their database...with credit to you. Also, people can comment on a public clip. Many times, clippers have led me to other similar articles.Clipmarks is a wonderful online tool, with a tiny icon(w/dropdown menu) and a great community that is more agile and responsive than Digg!

You can lock in redundant bookmarking to del.icio.us, so I think everyone should add-on ClipMarks....

Did I mention that I love Clipmarks, and I am reviewing it after using it for several months? Yeah! It's true.